Ramblings and meanderings from around Azeroth on a variety of characters.

Tuesday, 20 March 2012

WTB a clue!

I have a new level 80 druid, thanks to the Scroll of Resurrection. I had a bit of a dither about what to choose; as I was going to have a high level character 'given' to me, I felt like I should put a bit of thought into it, but in the end bat-troll won because... well. Trolls. And druids. And swift flight form, as a bat. And win. You get the picture?

I've said a few times on this blog, that I'm all for people being able to purchase max level characters - it'll un-break the leveling game for those who love leveling, and it will allow the people who just want end game now to have their end game and be done with it. I'm now recanting that a little. I have No Idea how to play a druid. I'm a boomkin - it isn't *that* hard, but seriously, I don't have the remotest notion. The nearest I've got to a 'high' level druid is one in the 50s. All of a sudden, having one at 80 means that I've got all these spells and abilities out of nowhere and I haven't got a clue when to use it. I was messing around in Scholomance trying to get the aurora robe to drop, so I could sent it to my baby warlock-with-identity-issues, when I had a panic. I'd been storming round in panzerkin form, insect swarming and moonfiring all the mobs and all of a sudden my moonfire spell had vanished off my tool bar. Where the hell was it? I know that I'm quite capable of jostling spells off my tool bar (yes, I know I can lock it...) so I went to my spell book. No moonfire. At this point, I would ask you to imagine me looking puzzled and scratching my head in a bemused fashion a la Laurel (or Hardy? I can never remember which is which.)

I had a bit of a cuss and squinted at my tool bar again. Hang on, there was a spell I didn't recognise. What the hell is that orangey coloured thing? It's where moonfire used to be. Oh... wait. That's the solar equivalent of moonfire? Moonfire has a solar equivalent now? Riiiiiiight. See what I mean? Clueless! But that's ok, because I'm not max level, nor am I hitting 5-mans or raids. But if I was max level? And I was impatient and wanted epix now!!1! I might just be hurling myself into LFG/LFR and causing mayhem. This is why I'm now a bit wary about letting people 'buy' their way to end game. Now, I understand that if you have grouped/raided before, you have a rough idea about how it all works. You know that you need to get out of the bad (or do you now get into it? Or does it depend on what sort of bad?), stay within healz range etc etc. But, I would suggest, you still need to have a grasp of what your class can do and what it should do. You still need to know what your cooldown are and when to blow them. What your 'oh shiiiit' button is and what it does.

All of this can be gleaned from some reading, sure, as can your best spec, gems, enchants, rotation etc, but you still, I think, need some experience actually playing. Maybe, if you could buy a max level character, the gear you're given would be deliberately itemised low enough that you wouldn't meet the minimum requirements for LFG/R. But if you have scads of cash, you could gear up quickly via the AH, could you not?

I have to say that if Blizzard are considering allowing people to purchase characters, whether that be via the online store, or via Scrolls of Resurrection (or similar) then they have the model right as it is now. Let people grab a character at the previous expansions level cap, then give them a few levels to Learn2Play! Letting people buy a max level character, in my opinion, would lead to many tears before bedtime end of raid-time.

1 comment:

I agree with you that the current Scroll of Resurrection model, where one starts out with a character at *last expansion's level cap* and has to L2P it by actual leveling before getting into *this expansion's endgame content* is a better way to "buy a high level toon" than just providing a character of this expansion's max level right off.

Also, it's already the deadline for Big Bear Butt's story challenge today, but I suggest you take a look at it and see if it inspires you to write something WoW-ish!